GENERAL  THOMAS  F.   BURKE. 


THE 

CELEBRATED  SPEECH 


OF 


GENERAL  THOMAS  F.  BURKE, 

Delivered  May  1,  1867, 

IN  THE  COURT-HOUSE,  DUBLIN, 

ON  BEING-  ASKED  BY  LORD  CHIEF-JUSTICE  WHITESIDE 

WHY  SENTENCE  OF  DEATH  SHOULD  NOT  BE 

PRONOUNCED  AGAINST  HIM. 

TO  WHICH  IS  ADDED 

COMMENTS  OF  THE  LONDON  SPECTATOR  ON  THE  FENIAN  AMNESTY 


AMERICAN  NEWS  COMPANY. 

1871. 


GOD  SAVE  IRELAND. 


NEW  YORK: 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

THOMAS  W.  HARTLEY, 

in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


MOORE    BROTHERS.    PRINTERS. 


\v\\ 


TO 

JEREMIAH   O'DONOVAN   ROSSA, 

AND  HIS  COMPATRIOTS 

IN  THE 

IN  THE  HOPE  THAT  ALMIGHTY  GOD  WILL  BLESS  THEM  IN  THEIR 

ADVERSITY,  SUCCOR  THEM  IN  THEIR  NEED,  STRENGTHEN 

THEM  IN  THEIR  ARMS,  CROWN  THEM  IN  THEIR 

EFFORTS,  AND  GUIDE  THEM 

IN  THEIR  LIBERTY, 

THIS  BOOK  IS 


EcsjycdfluIIg  IJcxtkafcct. 


3284 


PREFACE. 

HE  patriotic  course  and  manly  character  of  General 
Thomas  F.  Burke,  in  his  efforts  to  free  Ireland  from  the 
chains  of  slavery,  and  the  recent  conditional  release  of 
the  Fenian  state  prisoners  by  the  British  Government,  have  in- 
duced the  publication  of  this  little  volume. 

Love  of  country  and  patriotic  emotions  are  the  native  instincts 
of  the  Irishman's  heart.  He  draws  the  inspiration  from  his 
mother's  breast ;  he  cherishes  it  in  his  youth,  and  practises  it  in 
his  manhood.  It  was  this  feeling  of  devotion  to  his  native  country 
that  stimulated  the  noble  Burke  in  the  cause  of  emancipation. 
For  it,  he  was  sentenced  to  die.  This  sentence  of  death  was  after- 
ward commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life.  And  now,  to  add  fuel  to 
the  flames,  all  the  Fenian  state  prisoners,  including  Burke,  having 
been  released  from  the  most  unjust  incarceration,  are  obliged  to 
suffer  banishment  from  the  soil  of  their  birth. 

Through  all  the  struggles  and  trials  and  vicissitudes  of  life  to 
which  Burke  has  been  subjected,  he  has  acted  a  fearless  and  manly 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

part.  In  council  and  in  camp  —  in  peace  and  in  war — in  court 
and  in  prison  —  the  freedom  of  his  native  land  was  uppermost  in  his 
thoughts.  How  faithfully  did  he  obey  the  mandate  of  his  aged 
and  heroic  mother  when  she  bade  him,  "Go,  my  boy;  return 
either  with  your  shield  or  upon  it."  It  was  this  sentiment  that 
nerved  him  to  stand  before  the  court,  who  sat  in  judgment  upon 
him,  and  exclaim  : 

"In  thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that  burn," 

"  My  lords  !  '  It  is  sweet  to  die  for  one's  country.'  " 

Posterity  will  weave  garlands  around  the  brows  of  Curran  and 
O'Connell,  of  Emmet  and  Burke,  and  their  compeers  in  the  great 
work  of  Ireland's  emancipation;  and  their  hallowed  names  will  be 
consecrated,  and  live  in  history  and  song  as  co-laborers  in  the 
cause  of  republican  institutions  and  human  rights  long  after  the 
minions  of  that  tyranny,  which  has  subjected  the  people  of  Ireland 
to  the  most  abject  and  degrading  thraldom,  shall  be  forgotten. 

If  the  publication  of  the  speech  of  Thomas  F.  Burke,  and  the  com- 
ments on  the  "  Fenian  Amnesty "  will  do  aught  to  promote  the 
cause  of  Ireland's  emancipation  —  cause  one  tear  to  bedew  the 
shrubbery  planted  in  admiration  over  the  graves  of  her  patriot 
dead,  or  inspire  the  hearts  of  her  heroic  living  with  deeds  of  noble 
daring  —  then  we  have  not  issued  this  volume  in  vain. 


SPEECH  OF 


GENERAL  THOMAS   F.  BURKE, 

ON  BEING  ASKED  BY  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE  WHY  JUDGMENT  OF  DEATH   SHOULD 
NOT  BE  PRONOUNCED  AGAINST  HIM. 

HE  speech  of  General  Thomas  F.  Burke  is  one  which 
^W^S,  w^  become  memorable  in  our  history;    and  havin; 


had  an  opportunity  to  give  a  full,  correct,  and  au- 
thentic publication  of  it,  we  are  certain  our  readers  will  most 
heartily  approve  of  its  republication.  We  therefore  give,  from 
"The  Irishman,"  a  version  of  it  without  an  error;  and  we  deem 
it  worthy  of  this  careful  preparation  as  it  will  remain  among 
B  9 


IO  SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE. 

the  archives  of  our  nationality,  a  state  paper  testifying  to  other  men 
and  other  times  the  character,  the  courage,  and  the  dignity  of  the 
man  who  spoke  it  in  the  dock  at  Newgate.  A  man  of  feeling  the 
most  intense,  he  alluded  gracefully,  and  without  giving  way  for  a  mo- 
ment, to  the  ties  that  bound  him  to  home  and  life.  It  is  at  such  an 
hour  as  that  which  he  met  and  endured  that  the  revulsion  of  the  emo- 
tions is  stronger  than  pride  and  resistance.  The  heart  will  assert  its 
sway  if  there  be  not  a  higher  principle  to  still  its  tumultuous  throb- 
bings.  That  higher  principle  must  have  been  the  stay  of  Thomas  F. 
Burke  when  he  uttered  that  wonderful  piece  of  oratory  which  would, 
if  nothing  else  could  do  it,  rescue  his  memory  from  reproach  or 
oblivion.  It  is  a  voice  from  the  grave,  speaking  to  friends  and  foes. 
He  proclaimed  his  principles,  his  hopes,  and  aspirations  like  a  man 
who  depended  upon  the  proclamation  for  justice  to  his  life,  and 
who  left  it  as  a  legacy  to  the  future  that  no  one  could  asperse  his 
fame  when  he  lay  in  his  silent  grave.  To  a  man  like  this,  fame  was 
dearer  than  life  itself,  and  he  gave  expression  to  that  sentiment 
clearly  enough.  "Justice  to  my  memory"  was  the  prayer  of 
Emmet.  In  the  same  dock,  in  the  same  court,  almost  in  the  same 
spot,  Thomas  F.  Burke  lifted  his  voice  in  the  hope  and  faith  that,  no 
matter  who  differed  with  him  or  who  believed  with  him,  he  left  his 
reputation  unsullied  and  his  name  unstained.  He  knew,  for  he 
could  not  be  ignorant  of  it,  that  above  the  grave  of  the  dead  the 
memory  of  the  sleeper  below  is  often,  too  often,  carelessly  treated. 
"  Lightly  they  talk  of  the  spirit  that's  gone."     And  it  was  to  pro- 


SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE.  II 

vide  against  the  sharpest  and  most  envenomed  wrong  an  honorable 
and  honest  man  can  contemplate  that  as  Emmet  spoke  so  Burke 
spoke.  It  is  surely  mournful,  most  mournful,  that  men  of  such 
souls  as  these  have  had  to  meet,  through  all  our  history,  the  trai- 
tor's doom  and  the  felon's  fate  in  the  history  of  our  pacification. 
Two  hundred  years  ago,  when  Mountjoy  delivered  up  the  country 
to  Elizabeth,  "  carcasses  and  ashes,"  the  Government  of  the  day 
felicitated  itself  that  it  was  done  with  the  Irish  rebels.  When 
Sheares  lay  headless  on  the  scaffold  at  Green  Street,  when  Lord 
Edward  Fitzgerald  lay  dead  within  the  jail,  when  Thomas  Addis 
Emmet  was  in  exile,  the  same  felicitations  were  again  renewed. 
They  were  repeated  when  that  "boy-traitor,"  his  brother,  hung 
swaying  in  the  wind  from  the  fatal  tree  in  Thomas  Street ;  and  so 
runs  the  history  down  to  our  own  times.  There  never  was  a  more 
glowing  expression  of  the  feelings  that  actuated  men  like  these 
than  that  with  which  Thomas  F.  Burke  met  his  doom.  In  it  all  there 
is  not  a  tone  of  the  braggart's  voice.  Were  it  a  Pole  who  spoke  it 
upon  some  Russian  scaffold,  it  would  make  the  cause  in  which  it 
was  uttered  ring  through  Europe ;  were  it  a  Hungarian  or  a  Vene- 
tian, under  Austrian  rule,  who  gave  up  his  life  with  such  a  procla- 
mation of  the  feelings  that  actuated  him,  it  would  make  a  plea  to 
which  Europe  would  listen.  It  was  not  a  representative  of  either 
of  those  nationalities  who  spoke  the  speech;  and  it  can  only  remain 
upon  record  as  the  most  eloquent  and  dignified  speech  ever  made 
upon  such  an  occasion  since  the  days  of  Robert  Emmet.     No  one 


12  SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE. 

who  heard  it  can  ever  forget  it ;  no  one  who  stood  or  sat  in  that 
crowded  court,  when  in  the  intense  excitement  of  the  moment 
every  breath  was  hushed,  and  amidst  a  silence  as  deep  as  that  of 
the  grave,  when  every  glance  was  turned  upon  him,  he  moved  to 
the  bar  to  speak,  and  lifting  his  head,  whilst  his  cheek  flushed  and 
his  eye  gleamed  quick  fires,  began  :  — - 

"  My  Lords,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  occupy  much  of  your  time 
in  answer  to  the  question  why  the  sentence  of  the  court  should 
not  be  passed  upon  me ;  but  I  may,  with  your  permission,  review  a 
little  of  the  evidence  that  has  been  brought  against  me.  The  first 
evidence  is  that  of  Sub-Inspector  Kelly,  who  had  the  conversation 
with  me  at  Clonmal,  in  Tipperary.  He  states  that  he  asked  me 
then  what  about  my  friend,  Mr.  Stephens ;  that  I  made  answer  and 
said  he  was  the  most  idolized  man  that  ever  was,  or  ever  would  be, 
in  America.  Here,  standing  on  the  brink  of  my  grave,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Almighty  and  ever-living  God,  I  brand  that  as  being 
the  foulest  perjury  that  ever  a  man  gave  utterance  to.  No  such 
conversation  ever  occurred ;  the  name  of  Stephens  was  not  men- 
tioned. I  shall  pass  from  that,  and  then  touch  on  the  evidence  of 
Britt.  He  says  I  assisted  in  distributing  bread  to  the  parties  at  the 
fort,  and  that  I  stood  with  him  on  the  wagon  or  cart.  That  also 
is  false.  I  was  not  in  the  fort  at  the  time.  I  was  not  there  when 
the  bread  was  being  distributed.  I  came  in  afterward.  All  these 
assertions  have  been  made  and  submitted  to  the   men  in  whose 


SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE.  13 

hands  my  life  has  been  placed,  as  evidence  made  on  oath  by  these 
men,  solely  and  purely  for  the  purpose  of  giving  my  body  to  an 
untimely  grave.  There  are  many  points,  my  lord,  that  have  been 
sworn  to  here  to  prove  my  complicity,  and  a  great  many  acts  have 
been  alleged  that  I  took  part  in.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  give 
utterance  to  one  word  against  the  sentence  that  has  been  pro- 
nounced against  me.  I  feel  fully  conscious  of  my  honor  as  a  man, 
which  has  never  been  impugned,  fully  conscious  that  I  can  go  into 
my  grave  with  a  name  and  character  unsullied.  I  can  say  that 
these  parties,  either  actuated  by  a  desire  for  their  own  aggrandize- 
ment or  to  save  their  paltry  and  miserable  lives,  have  pandered  to 
the  appetites,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of  justice,  and  my  life  is  to  pay 
the  forfeit  Fully  convinced  and  satisfied  of  the  righteousness  of 
my  every  act  in  connection  with  this  alleged  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  Ireland,  I  have  nothing  to  recall,  nothing  that  I  would 
undo,  nothing  to  bring  up  the  blush  of  shame  to  mantle  on  my 
brow.  My  conduct  and  career,  both  here  and  in  America,  of  which 
I  have  been  a  citizen,  and,  if  you  like,  a  soldier,  is  before  you;  and 
I  feel  in  this  very  hour  of  trial  the  consciousness  of  having  lived 
an  honest  man,  and  I  will  die  proudly,  believing  that,  if  I  have 
given  material  aid  to  give  freedom  and  liberty  to  the  land  of  my 
birth,  I  have  done  only  that  which  every  Irishman  whose  soul 
throbs  with  a  feeling  of  liberty  should  do.  I  feel  I  should  not 
mention  the  name  of  Massey.  I  feel  I  should  not  pollute  my  lips 
with  the  name  of  that  traitor,  whose  illegitimacy  has  been  proved 


14  SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE. 

here,  the  man  whose  name  is  not  known,  and  who,  I  deny  point- 
blank,  ever  wore  the  star  of  colonel  in  the  Confederate  army.  I 
shall  let  him  rest.  I  shall  pass  him,  wishing  him,  in  the  words 
of  the  poet,  — 

'  May  the  grass  wither  from  his  feet !  the  woods 
Deny  him  shelter !  earth  a  home  !  the  dust 
A  grave  !  the  sun  his  light !  and  heaven  her  God ! ' 

Let  Massey  remember  from  this  day  forth  he  carries  with  him,  as 
my  able  and  learned  counsel,  Mr.  Dowse,  has  stated,  a  serpent  that 
will  gnaw  his  conscience;  carrying  about  with  him  in  his  breast  a 
living  hell  from  which  he  can  never  be  separated.  I,  my  lords,  have 
no  desire  for  the  name  of  a  martyr.  I  ask  not  the  death  of  a  mar- 
tyr. But  if  it  is  the  will  of  that  Almighty  and  Omnipotent  God, 
that  my  devotion  to  the  land  of  my  birth  shall  be  tested  on  the 
scaffold,  I  am  willing  there  to  die  in  defence  of  the  rights  of  men 
to  a  free  government,  and  of  the  rights  of  an  oppressed  people  to 
throw  off  the  yoke  of  thraldom.  I  am  an  Irishman  by  birth,  an 
American  by  adoption ;  by  nature  a  lover  of  freedom,  and  an 
enemy  to  that  power  that  holds  my  native  land  in  the  bonds  of 
tyranny.  It  has  so  often  been  admitted  that  the  oppressed  have  a 
right  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  oppressor,  even  by  English 
statesmen,  that  I  deem  it  unnecessary  to  revert  to  that  fact  in  a 
British  court  of  justice.  Ireland's  children  are  not,  never  can,  and 
never  will  be,  willing  and  submissive  slaves.     And  so  long  as  the 


SPEECH     OF    GENERAL    TH-OMAS    F.    BURKE. 


15 


English  flag  covers  one  inch  of  Irish  soil,  just  so  long  will  they, 
jelieving  it  to  be  a  divine  right,  'conspire,  imagine,  and  devise' 
means  to  hurl  it  from  power,  and  erect  in  its  stead  the  godlike 
structure  of  self-government. 

I  know  that  I  am  here  without  a  relative  —  without  a  friend,  in 
fact  —  three  thousand  miles  away  from  my  family.  But  I  know 
that  I  am  not  forgotten  there.  The  great  and  generous  Irish  heart 
of  America  to-day  feels  for  me  —  to-day  sympathizes  with  and  does 
not  forget  the  man  who  is  willing  to  tread  the  scaffold  —  ay,  defi- 
antly, proudly  conscious  of  having  to  suffer  in  defence  of  liberty. 
I  shall  now,  my  lords,  as  no  doubt  you  will  suggest  the  propriety 
of  turning  attention  to  the  world  beyond  the  grave ;  I  shall  now 
look  only  to  that  home  where  sorrows  are  at  an  end,  where  joy  is 
eternal,  and  I  shall  hope  and  pray  that  freedom  may  yet  dawn  on 
this  poor  down  -  trodden  country.  That  is  my  hope,  that  is  my 
prayer,  and  the  last  words  I  shall  utter  will  be  a  prayer  to  God  foi 
forgiveness  and  a  prayer  for  poor  old  Ireland.  Now,  my  lords,  in 
relation  to  the  informer,  Corydan,  I  will  make  a  few  remarks.  I 
never  attended  a  meeting  at  Colonel  Kelly's ;  and  the  other  state- 
ments that  have  been  made  on  oath  by  him  to  you,  gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  I  solemnly  now  declare  on  my  oath  as  a  man  —  ay,  as  a 
dying  man  —  have  been  totally  unfounded,  and  have  all  been  false 
from  beginning  to  end.  In  relation  to  the  small  paper  introduced 
to  you,  and  brought  against  me  as  evidence  of  my  having  been  using 
that  oath,  I  desire  to  say  that  that  paper  was  not  taken  from  my 


l6  SPEECH    OF    GENERAL    THOMAS    F.    BURKE. 

person.  I  know  no  person  whose  name  is  on  that  paper.  That 
paper  has  been  put  in  for  a  purpose,  but  I  swear  positively  it  is  not 
in  my  handwriting;  I  can  also  swear  I  never  saw  it;  yet  it  is  held 
in  evidence  against  me.  Is  this  justice?  or  is  it  right?  Is  this 
manly?  I  am  willing,  if  I  have  transgressed  the  laws,  to  suffer  the 
punishment  of  my  offence.  But  I  object  to  this  system  of  trump- 
ing up  a  case  to  take  away  the  life  of  a  human  being.  I  ask  for  no 
mercy.  With  my  present  emaciated  frame,  and  my  constitution 
somewhat  shattered,  it  is  better  that  my  life  should  be  brought  to 
an  end  than  that  I  should  drag  out  a  miserable  existence  in  the 
prison-pens  of  Portland.  Thus  it  is,  my  lords,  I  accept  of  the  ver- 
dict :  of  course  my  acceptance  of  it  is  unnecessary ;  but  I  am  satis- 
fied with  it,  and  now  I  shall  close.  There  are  many  feelings  that 
actuate  me  at  this  moment.  In  fact,  these  few  disconnected  remarks 
can  give  no  idea  of  what  I  desire  to  say  to  the  court.  I  have  a 
family  I  love  as  much  as  any  man  in  this  court  can  love  his.  I  can 
remember  the  blessings  of  my  aged  mother  as  I  left  her  for  the 
last  time.  She  then  spoke  as  the  Spartan  mother  of  old,  '  Go,  my 
boy  ;  return  either  with  your  shield  or  upon  it.'  This  consoles  me : 
this  gives  me  heart  to  submit  to  my  doom;  and  I  hope  that  God 
will  forgive  me  past  sins.  I  hope,  too,  that  inasmuch  as  for  seven 
hundred  years  He  has  preserved  Ireland,  notwithstanding  the 
tyranny  to  which  she  has  been  subject,  that  as  a  separate  and  dis- 
tinct nationality,  He  will  also  assist  her  to  retrieve  her  fallen  for- 
tunes, and  to  rise  in  her  beauty,  the  sister  of  Columbia,  the  peer  of 
any  nation  in  the  world." 


THE   FENIAN   AMNESTY.* 

i^^m^Sf  I  IE  condition  which  the  Government  has  affixed  to 
Jram(P^  *ts  liberation  of  the  Fenian  prisoners  seems  to  us 
3iH!fei$L  to  be  a  miserable  mistake,  unwise,  ungenerous,  and 
unjust.  To  claim  credit  for  it  "as  an  act  of  pure  clemency," 
which  not  even  the  most  malignant  enemy  of  the  Government 
dare  venture  to  misrepresent,  is  hardly  worthy  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's keen  intelligence  and  serious  character.  If  it  be  proper 
to  append  Queen  Victoria's  name  to  an  act  of  amnesty  granted  to 
Irish  rebels,  it  should  not  be  coupled  with  conditions  which  even 
Louis  Napoleon  would  have  been  ashamed  to  subjoin  to  an 
amnesty  offered  to  the  most  dangerous  and  unscrupulous  of  the 
French  Reds.  After  all,  the  condition  affixed  to  the  liberation  of 
these  unhappy  men  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  banishment  for 
life.  They  are  required  to  leave  the  United  Kingdom,  and  to 
undertake  not  to  return  to  it.  This  sweeping  and  perpetual  sen- 
tence is  made  applicable  to   all  of  them,  though  there  is  a  wide 

*  From  the  "  London  Spectator." 


IS  THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY. 

variety  in  their  degree  of  guilt,  and  also  in  the  terms  of  imprison- 
ment to  which  they  are  liable.*  Some  of  them,  like  Burke  and 
Mackay,  have  had  sentence  of  death  for  levying  war  against  the 
Queen  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life ;  some,  like  Luby  and 
Mulcahy,  now  five  years  in  jail,  have  gone  through  a  great  part 
of  the  period  of  punishment  imposed  upon  them  for  writing  news- 
paper articles  which  the  Irish  courts  considered  treasonable  in  the 
good  old  time  when  Sir  Robert  Peel,  being  Chief  Secretary, 
declared  that  he  and  Lord  Palmerston  would  stand  or  fall  with  the 
Irish  Church,  and  when  Mr.  Cardwell  solemnly  warned  the  Irish 
people  that  Parliament  would  never  listen  to  their  demands  for 
tenant-right.  If  Parliament  has  been  wise  in  the  work  it  has  done 
during  the  last  two  sessions,  there  was  surely  some  little  excuse  for 
strong  writing  in  those  days.  To  pass  a  fresh  sentence  of  per- 
petual exile  on  such  men,  and  on  others  whose  sentences  were  only 
for  spaces  of  seven  and  five  years,  and  who  would,  therefore,  be 
absolutely  entitled  to  their  liberty  after  a  comparatively  short  period 
of  further  restraint  —  on  men  who  have,  in  many  cases,  suffered  so 
considerable  a  portion  of  their  sentence  as  has  often  sufficed  to  let 
some  hardened  thief  or  desperate  garroter  loose  on  our  streets  with 
a  ticket-of-leave  —  on  men  the  degree  of  whose  guilt  it  would  be 

*  The  Dublin  newspapers,  speaking  of  the  terms  of  the  amnesty  to  the  Fenian  convicts,  say  that  the  con- 
ditions of  the  pardons  are  that  the  released  prisoners  shall  not  return  to  Ireland  until  after  the  expiration  of 
their  respective  sentences.  Those  condemned  to  five  years'  penal  servitude  will  be  free  to  return  in  about  a 
year,  and  those  sentenced  to  twenty  years  will  be  exiled  for  fifteen  years.  It  was  at  first  supposed  that  the 
banishment  was  to  be  perpetual. 


THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY.  IQ 

impossible  to  distinguish  from  that  of  their  comrades  to  whom  a 
full  and  unconditional  pardon  was  given  two  years  ago  —  to  do  this 
is,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  simply,  utterly,  and  flagrantly  unjust. 
But  apart  from  this  general  consideration  of  the  case,  these 
unfortunate  men  are,  we  venture  to  assert,  entitled  to  claim  their 
liberation  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  if  not  as  an  absolute  right,  still  in 
virtue  of  an  undertaking  on  his  part,  in  some  degree  conditioned 
by  circumstances  which  very. decidedly  deprive  it  of  the  quality  of 
"an  act  of  pure  clemency."  When  the  Peace  Preservation  Act  was 
before  the  House  of  Commons  last  March,  the  late  Mr.  Moore,  M.P. 
for  Mayo,  had  given  notice  of  his  intention  to  bring  the  case  of  the 
Irish  political  prisoners  before  Parliament.  Such  a  motion,  at  the 
moment,  might  have  proved  embarrassing.  The  Government  was, 
at  all  events,  exceedingly  anxious  to  become  possessed,  with  as 
little  delay  as  possible,  of  the  necessary  but  formidable  weapon  of 
law  then  in  rapid  process  of  fabrication.  Some  communications  of  . 
the  kind  usual  in  such  cases  no  doubt  took  place,  for  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, on  the  17th  of  March,  submitted  to  the  process  of  an  inter- 
pellation on  the  part  of  Mr.  Moore,  the  course  of  which  had  evi- 
dently been  arranged  beforehand.  A  certain  vague  and  gloomy 
amphibology,  nevertheless,  pervaded  Mr.  Gladstone's  answer,  which 
dissatisfied  Mr.  Moore,  a  man  of  vivid  and  precise  phrase  ;  and  four 
days  afterward,  when  the  question  came  on  again,  it  transpired  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  agreed  beforehand  to  give  an  answer  in  terms 
somewhat  more  distinct.     These  are  the  precise  terms  which  Mr. 


20  THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY. 

Moore  embodied  in  his  notice  of  a  second  question  which  he 
addressed  to  the  Prime  Minister  on  the  31st  of  March:  "That  the 
consideration  of  this  question  [the  liberation  of  the  prisoners]  must 
necessarily  depend  upon  the  restoration  of  law  and  order  in  Ireland ; 
and  as  soon  as  the  disorders  now  prevailing  in  that  country  are 
repressed,  Mr.  Gladstone  trusts  that  he  will  be  able  to  give  a  very 
different  answer  to  Mr.  Moore,  and  to  announce  the  liberation  of 
the  political  prisoners." 

Mr.  Gladstone  said  in  reply  that  this  was  the  very  meaning  he 
had  intended  to  convey  on  the  previous  evening.  But  what,  may 
we  ask,  did  Mr.  Gladstone  mean  by  the  word  "  liberation  "  ?  Did 
he  mean  transportation  for  life  ?  We  know  no  case  in  which  a 
political  amnesty  has  been  so  interpreted,  except  that  of  Poerio  and 
his  comrades,  who,  having  been  deported  to  the  United  States  by 
the  King  of  Naples,  mutinied  on  the  voyage,  and  carried  their 
transport  into  Cork.  But  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not 
mean  to  transport  the  Irish  political  prisoners  to  America  at  the 
time  that  he  gave  the  answer  to  which  Mr.  Moore  objected  as  defi- 
cient in  clearness  and  savor;  because,  in  that  answer,  he  spoke  of 
the  cruelty  it  would  be  to  hold  out  misleading  hopes  prematurely 
to  the  friends  of  the  prisoners.  If  it  had  been  his  intention  then  to 
release  those  prisoners  on  Christmas  eve,  with  the  one  condition 
that  they  should  never  see  their  homes,  families,  and  friends  again, 
then,  we  must  say,  so  much  and  such  ostentatious  consideration  for 
the  feelings  of  their  friends   and  families   might  well  have  been 


THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY.  21 

spared.  Nor  need  the  whole  population  of  Ireland  have  been 
bound  over  to  keep  the  peace  on  public  conditions  expressed  in 
Parliament,  if  such  was  the  sort  of  political  amnesty  that  her 
Majesty's  ministers  ultimately  contemplated.  It  was  not,  perhaps, 
wise  statesmanship  so  to  identify  the  case  of  the  political  prisoners 
with  the  conduct  of  the  general  population,  that  their  liberation 
should  be  made  to  depend  on  the  amount  of  crime  perpetrated 
during  the  following  six  months  or  so.  But  at  all  events  the  Peace 
Preservation  Act  appears  to  have  answered  its  purpose.  Law  and 
order  have  been,  so  to  speak,  restored  in  Ireland.  The  disorders 
which  prevailed  in  that  country  last  March  have  been  repressed. 
Mr.  Moore,  however,  no  longer  lives  to  claim  the  very  different 
answer  which  Mr.  Gladstone  held  out  the  hope  of  his  being  able  to 
give.  Under  such  circumstances,  to  interpret  "  liberation  "  as 
meaning  "  banishment"  is,  at  least,  ungenerous.  Of  all  the  causes 
which  have  contributed  to  make  the  relations  between  the  two 
countries  so  bitter  and  bloody,  hardly  any  has  been  so  potent  as 
this  holding  the  word  of  promise  to  the  ear  at  one  time,  and  quib- 
bling it  away  at  another,  with  professions  that  have,  to  the  mind 
of  a  people  at  once  simple  and  suspicious,  all  the  effect  of  a  some- 
what solemn  and  exuberant  insincerity. 

But  the  unwisdom  of  sending  these  men  to  the  United  States  at 
this  moment  —  for  the  United  States  is,  of  course,  the  one  country 
outside  the  United  Kingdom  open  to  them  in  the  present  state  of 
the  world  —  has  in  it  something  so  inconsiderate  as  to  be  almost 


22  THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY. 

appalling.  What  must  these  men  do  of  mere  necessity  when  they 
arrive  there?  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  that  a  feeling  of 
loyal  gratitude  should  grow  in  their  bosoms  during  the  Atlantic 
voyage  in  consequence  of  the  degree  of  "  liberation  "  in  which  they 
have  been  indulged.  These  convicts,  who  were  picking  oakum  or 
breaking;  stones  a  week  ago,  will  arrive  at  New  York,  and  find  them- 
selves  the  idols  of  a  popular  ovation  and  in  recognized  command 
of  a  great  political  influence.  The  Irish  vote  will  be  at  their  bid- 
ding, at  a  time  when  the  relations  of  America  with  England  are 
again  assuming  a  very  anxious  character.  The  city  of  New  York 
will  doubtless  receive  them  with  public  honors.  They  may  be 
admitted  to  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and  entertained  at  the  White 
House.  The  fact  remains  that  at  a  time  when  the  Fenian  organiza- 
tion in  the  United  States  had  fallen  into  a  state  of  almost  complete 
collapse  from  lack  of  leadership,  we  are  sending  its  most  daring 
and  able  spirits  to  the  very  base  of  the  operations  of  the  conspiracy. 
Ere  many  weeks,  we  may  reasonably  expect  to  hear  that  Luby  and 
Mulcahy  are  "stumping"  the  Union  in  aid  of  the  Russo-Prusso- 
American  alliance,  while  Burke  and  Mackay  are  directing  opera- 
tions on  the  Canadian  frontier  to  illustrate  President  Grant's 
peculiar  views  of  that  "  irresponsible  Dominion."  It  certainly  is 
not  wise  statesmanship  to  send  these  men  to  the  one  part  of  the 
world  where  they  may,  and  almost  must,  make  much  mischief; 
where  there  is  every  temptation  to  them  to  resume  their  old  courses, 
and  where  those  courses,  at  present,  are  the  high  road  to  popularity, 
influence,  and  means. 


THE    FENIAN    AMNESTY.  23 

If  it  were  proper  to  couple  conditions  with  an  act  of  pure  clem- 
ency, there  is  one  which  might,  with  advantage,  be  substituted  for 
that  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  imposed.  The  political  prisoners 
might  have  been  bound  to  return  to  and  to  remain  in  Ireland. 
There  they  would  find  that  the  great  injustices  whose  existence 
made  political  conspiracy  possible  ten  years  ago  have  been  sum- 
marily abolished.  They  would  find  a  popular  executive  armed 
with  powers  ample  and  effectual  to  enable  them  to  answer  for  the 
peace  of  the  country.  They  would,  in  their  own  despite,  serve  as 
living  monuments  of  the  clemency  of  a  wise  and  fearless  Govern- 
ment. The  Irish  administration  would  hardly  shrink  from  such  an 
addition  to  their  charge  —  for  this  is  not  a  time  to  make  things 
easy  to  the  Irish  executive  at  the  expense  of  the  empire.  Is  it  too 
late  to  hope  that  before  this  ungenerous  and  impolitic  condition  is 
enforced,  the  sovereign  herself  may  object  to  have  the  quality  of 
her  mercy  strained  after  such  a  fashion  ?  If  such  an  act  were  pos- 
sible, that  is  to  say  constitutional,  it  would  make  the  royal  clem- 
ency a  word  of  pure  and  serious  meaning  from  shore  to  shore  of 
Ireland. 


t 

Date  Due 

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BOSTON  COLLEGE 


0093 


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